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Friday, February 21, 2014

An Open Letter to NJ Gov. Chris Christie & Senate President Steve Sweeney (who wants his job so badly he can taste it) explaining some exigencies in the matter of firearm magazine restrictions and The Law of Unintended Consequences.

21 February 2014

Dear Chris and Steve,

It seems that New Jersey is once again poised to take up the tyrant's cudgel when it comes to her citizens' liberty, property and lives and I thought it only polite to write to you with a friendly warning explaining some exigencies in the matter of firearm magazine restrictions and The Law of Unintended Consequences as they apply to you, personally and politically, as well as your state.

My readers in New Jersey apprised me early yesterday of this story: "NJ Legislature Declares War on Millions of Standard Capacity Magazines." (1) This warning was confirmed last night in a story by Daryl Isherwood: "Deal in place to cut ammo magazine limit to 10 rounds." (2) Some of those same readers asked me to write you to comment upon certain things which should be obvious to you bright boys, but which apparently are not. (You will forgive, I hope, if this letter seems a bit hurried. It is. You are in a hurry to strip your citizens of their God-given, natural and inalienable rights and I am in a hurry to be about my smuggling in opposition to it. So many wannabe tyrants, so little time and resources.)

As the gargantuan appetites of both of your political ambitions are legendary (yours, Governor, for the White House and yours, Sen. Sweeney, for the Governor's job) it is remarkable to me that you would bite down hard on the long-proven excrement sandwich that is firearms confiscation (just ask Bill Clinton, who lost the House over it in 1994 and Al Gore, who lost the presidency over it in 2000).

First, Governor, if you sign this new tyrannical monstrosity you can forget ever winning a GOP presidential primary. Period. As in permanent amnesia fuggedaboutit. Now I understand that you both come from a state where collectivism has long ruled, where getting overheard on a hot mic
talking of the property and liberty of fellow citizens in terms of "Confiscate -- Confiscate -- Confiscate" bears no political price whatsoever. But do you really think, Chris, that the GOP voters in Iowa and "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire are going to care? Fuggedaboutit.

I think that about sums it up, Governor. I am tempted to say, "you may go now," but then the unintended consequences I am about to explain to Steve may have some interest, because YOU are going to be the one stuck with enforcing this new tyrannical diktat on New Jersey citizens with the threat of state violence at the muzzles of the firearms of the New Jersey State Police -- a dicey proposition at best as I will delineate. On second thought, you'd better stick around.

Now, Steve, have you actually thought through how you're going to get all those magazines you're going to ban? I mean, really? We already know that the current 15 round limit is widely ignored by the previously-law abiding folks that you and your ilk have made criminals. How do you propose to get the rest? Are you really extrapolating from your own cowardice and believing that folks will turn them in JUST BECAUSE YOU SAY SO? And after the first New Jersey citizen is killed in a raid over an additional five rounds of magazine capacity, who do you think people are going to blame? The state trooper who executes him (or, God forbid, his family) or the over-fed, over-inflated collectivist union thug empty suit ego/appetite pitiful-excuse-for-a-human-being who sent him? I'm betting that they blame you, Steve.

This is not without precedent you know, and you have Bill Clinton to thank for it. In 1999, back when he was frustrated with Serbian intransigence over Kosovo, Clinton changed the rules of engagement of the United States military and declared that the politicians, intelligentsia and media supporting an enemy's war effort were now fair game. To that end, he ordered precision guided munitions placed into the homes and buildings of Serbian politicians (and media organizations). This reversed centuries of understanding that kings didn't assassinate other kings because they might just get assassinated right back. The Law of Unintended Consequences decreed that he could get away with such temerity in Serbia, but it was inevitable that other folks would sit up and take notice. (Please see Tyrants beware. 4th Generation Warfare: How the next civil war will be fought. (5))

I mention this not as a threat, but as I said, out of politeness and concern for your well-being. You are moving (as Connecticut, New York, Maryland and Colorado have moved) into an undiscovered country. You have declared your appetite for your fellow citizens' liberty, property and lives. Can you blame them if they take you seriously? As I explained to Michael Lawlor, Connecticut's anti-firearm bully boy the other day:

This is not a threat, of course. Not the personal, actionable threat that you may claim. It ranks right along with -- no, that's wrong, IT IS EXACTLY LIKE -- an ex-con meeting me in the street and pointing to my neighbor's house saying, "Tonight I am going to break in there, kill that man, rape his wife and daughters and steal everything that he is, has, or may become." I warn him, "If you try to do that, he will kill you first. He may not look like much, but I know him to be vigilant and perfectly capable of blowing your head off." That is not a threat from me. It is simply good manners. Consider this letter in the same vein. I am trying to save you from yourself.

For, like that common criminal, you have announced by your unconstitutional law and your public statements in favor of its rigorous enforcement that you have a tyrannical appetite for your neighbors' liberty, property and lives. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that this policy, if carried to your announced conclusion, will not end well for anybody, but especially for you. To think otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history. (6)

So, Steve, you do the math. Connecticut has only had a 15% compliance rate with their new semi-auto registration plan (even less with the magazine registration). Just how many of your citizens will refuse to obey? And how many state troopers do you have to enforce this new diktat? Is it starting to look like Little Big Horn? It should. And you are the guy that some of your victims are going to hold as principally responsible for this new tyranny. The Governor, too, if he goes along with this suicidal foolishness.

For my part, I intend to extend my magazine smuggling operation to New Jersey now, and as evidence of my sincerity, I am enclosing to both you and the Guv a standard capacity rifle magazine left over from my
Toys for Totalitarians campaign along with the hard-copy of this letter. (7)

If the stories are true -- and I have no doubt that they are, such is the arrogance of your ignorance -- you will have made hundreds of thousands of new criminals and further degraded the respect of your citizens for the rule of law. How long do you think you can rule without the consent of the governed? How long will it be, especially when your state police start killing them over the numbers of rounds in a mechanical device in common usage almost everywhere else in the country? How long?

If you proceed with this new tyranny, I think we're all going to find out.

13 comments:

Maybe he should be told that when a citizen has been deemed from a background check to be trust worthy to be armed, at what arbitrary number of rounds in a magazine did he no longer become trustworthy and considered to be a criminal?

Brilliant! Your letters get better each time. If there is a way that you could sign them both from yourself AND us 3pers, that would be even better. Or perhaps have a sign-up page for everyone that wants to be a part of those letters so that these tyrant wannabes can see that you represent a very large number of people and we all know who THEY are.

Mike, please remind those tyrant-wannabes; The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting or sports. The 2nd Amendment is precisely for citizens to protect themselves from tyrants. The only permit one needs is the 2nd Amendment! Alberto Alcala' III

Brilliant! Your letters get better each time. If there is a way that you could sign them both from yourself AND us 3pers, that would be even better. Or perhaps have a sign-up page for everyone that wants to be a part of those letters so that these tyrant wannabes can see that you represent a very large number of people and we all know who THEY are.

Many people held their noses and voted for McCain feeling that he was the "lesser of two weevils".

Eight million of them couldn't bear to repeat that experience and stayed home rather than vote for Romney.

And if Christie runs?

This republic has always had two dominant political parties, but they have not always been the same two parties. The Whigs and "Jeffersonian" Democrats have become fixtures of the history books. I suspect we're seeing that process repeat for the GOP.

Don't forget Gov Florio's semi-auto gun ban years ago in New Jersey, when the compliance rate was somewhere down around 15% IIRC. Why do they keep trying this crap? Do they enjoy being ignored? Or, if the enforcement gets brutal, do they enjoy being dead?

so far only the voting booth has replaced political tyrants....with all these new assaults on freedom and liberty ,along with private property displacement....that may change....when the first leave falls in the fall...ALL will know that the time has come to prepare for the 'winter storm'....so be it....imho

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.